[Machine transcription]
Paul writes, I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was
given you in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
You may be seated.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints, we want to consider this text under the theme of seeing things differently
or maybe how Jesus makes us see things differently.
Paul, Saint Paul, always prays.
We know this because he tells us about it.
It’s quite nice, actually, that in the 13 letters of St. Paul, he has 18 or 19, there’s
a question about if this is true for one text, there’s 18 or 19 times where Paul tells us
what he’s praying for.
And most of the time, I would guess probably over half of those times, Paul tells us that
he’s giving thanks.
In fact, every one of his letters except for two begins by Paul reporting to the people
that he’s writing to, how he gives thanks to God for them, why he gives thanks to God
for them, for what he gives thanks to God too on their behalf, and this text is no different.
Paul starts out this letter to the saints of God in Corinth and says, I give thanks to
my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.
Now, what the stunning thing is, is that when we read the rest of the letter, we know what
was going on in Corinth, at least we know part of it, and it was not good.
There was divisions in Corinth.
They were fighting over the doctrine.
Some said, I’m of Paul, or I’m of Apollos, or I’m of Cephas, or I’m of Christ.
There was sexual immorality that was known in the church.
In fact, it was so bad that one member of the church was having a sexual relationship
with his father’s wife and was boasting about it in church, as if this was something he
could do because he was a Christian.
There was divorce and all sorts of trouble regarding the God’s gift of marriage.
And they had trouble at communion.
Everyone was pressing into communion.
communion, people were getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper, people weren’t waiting for
everyone else, it was completely out of order.
They had problems with spiritual gifts.
In fact, the service in Corinth sounds like it would have been an utterly chaotic sort
of thing, that whenever anyone had an idea, they would stand up and say it, and half the
time they would say it in a foreign language so that nobody even knew what they were talking
about.
Men and women were preaching in Corinth.
So, Paul has to write instructions and say, let everything be done in order.
Our God is a God of order and not of chaos.
And perhaps maybe worst of all, most troubling of all for Paul is that there were some people
in the church in Corinth that didn’t believe in the resurrection.
They didn’t believe in the general resurrection of all people, and specifically they didn’t
believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
I can’t imagine, you know, getting a call to a church like this and you go to visit
and say, well pastor, everything’s pretty good here, we just got a few problems, wait
a minute.
Now can you imagine, Paul had been there in Corinth for a year and a half to establish
this church and he had preached and poured his heart out, he was going to leave there
because he was brought to trial but the Lord said, no stay in Corinth, I’ve got people
who I want to call to be my own and so Paul labors for a year and a half in Corinth to
establish this church, and then he travels away to finish his second missionary journey,
and he gets word about all of these troubles, and you have to think that Paul would just
be so distressed about hearing all of these things, so worried, so frustrated, agonized,
and yet when he writes this letter to him, he says, first of all, I give thanks to my
God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.
Now this is an amazing thing that Paul can look at the church in Corinth in such a profoundly
thankful and spiritual way.
And I’d like to suggest to you that St. Paul can do that because he has, and here’s a phrase
that Martin Luther always used to preach, he has spiritual eyes.
We were meditating on this yesterday at the Men’s Bible Study.
We’re going to meditate on it on Tuesday when the pastors gather here this week as
well.
What does it mean to have spiritual eyes?
We know what it means to have eyes of the flesh, to have natural eyes.
That means we can look around and we can see how things are.
But spiritual eyes understand the world not through what we see but rather through what
we hear.
here. Spiritual eyes really are the eyes of Jesus, or to say it as clearly as I think
I know how to say it, it is eyes that see things as Jesus sees them. And I want to think
about how spiritual eyes change our perspective in three different ways. And first, maybe
not even our way, but the first is that God sees things differently through Christ. The
second is that we see God differently through Christ. The third is that we see ourselves
differently through Christ, and then the conclusion is that we see others
differently through Christ. First and perhaps most foundationally, we want to
say this, God sees us differently through Christ. Jesus, when he is dying on the
cross for us, is taking all of our sin, all of our guilt, all of our suffering,
all of our sorrow, and He is paying the price. He is, as John preached, the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world. So that all of our sin was taken off of
us and put on Christ, and all of Christ’s righteousness is now placed on us. We are
clothed in Christ. Here’s how Paul says it in Galatians 3, for as many of you as
were baptized into Christ, you have put on Christ.
Or Colossians 3, verse 3 says, you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
In other words, dear saints, when God the Father looks at you, He sees the perfection
of Jesus, the righteousness of Christ.
There is in our home congregation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Grace Lutheran Church, Albuquerque,
New Mexico.
That’s where we were confirmed, where Hannah was baptized, there’s a sculpture that’s
in the front of the church, and it’s a Trinitarian sculpture, and it’s quite stunning.
In fact, it’s a bit arresting.
People see the church from the outside, and they say, what a beautiful place, I want to
go and I want to have my wedding there, and then they come in to look around, and then
they say, oh, maybe not, because the sculpture is there.
It’s a huge sculpture of Jesus, who’s almost nude except for a flame that wraps around him
like a loincloth, and behind him is a huge fireball
carved out of wood, and in the middle of the fireball,
right behind the head of Jesus, is an eye.
One big unblinking eye with a gold center.
It is really, you walk in and that catches your attention.
But it’s a Trinitarian sculpture,
but perhaps for our point, one of the things that it says
is that look, there’s the eye of God,
But it’s behind the face of Jesus so that when God looks at us
He sees us through the eyes of Jesus. He does not see you
Listen he does not see you in your sin
He does not see you covered in the filth of your own transgression
He does not see you in your guilt and in your shame. He doesn’t see it
He sees you clothed and perfected in Christ
First, so that Jesus, the death of Jesus, changes the way that God sees us.
And second, the death of Jesus changes the way that we see God.
Remember what Jesus said to Philip, Philip, have I been with you so long and do you not
yet understand?
If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.
God.
We might be tempted in this world of trouble and in our life of sin to see God as angry
or as frustrated or as distant from us, but no, through Christ we see God differently.
We see God crucified for us, bleeding and dying for us, coming for us and rescuing us.
In other words, in Christ we see that God is gracious for us, that God loves us, and
And that nothing can separate us from His love.
Now, this question comes up all the time, which is this, Pastor, how can I be sure,
how can I be sure that God loves me?
How can I be sure that God’s not angry at me?
How can I be sure that He delights in me?
And the answer is Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus.
That stands as the proof, the unchanging and immutable proof that God is love.
You can undo His love just as much as you can undo His death on the cross.
In other words, it cannot, it cannot happen.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
And that giving of the Son into death is proof of the love of God for you.
And through this, through the death of Jesus, we see God differently.
And third, we see ourselves differently.
Now, I do not know how you, how you think of yourself.
You know, all of us are tempted really in two directions when we look in the mirror.
Our minds and our imaginations are going to break in one of two ways, either pride or
despair.
Wow!
Or, wow.
I imagine that changes every day depending on what’s going on.
Some days we’re pretty proud of ourselves, some days we’re full of despair, and we’re
tempted to live this life of this pendulum, sliding back and forth, swinging back and
forth between these two poles of pride and despair, but the Lord comes to us and through
Jesus He teaches us not only how to see God rightly, but how to look at ourselves.
Pride?
No.
All are sinners.
All have fallen short of the glory of God.
All of us are God’s enemies.
All of us break God’s law.
You and I are sinners, poor, miserable sinners, and this undoes our pride, but
there’s also no room for despair because you are died for by Jesus. He’s paid the
price for you. He’s purchased you. He’s won you to be his own, and this is how we
think of ourselves as sinners redeemed by Christ, dead to sin and alive
to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. So we reckon ourselves, we know that we are
failures that we deserve God’s anger, and we know that Christ has taken God’s anger
for us, and this gives us hope and peace and a realistic view of ourselves, and perhaps
finally, this also changes how we see other people.
Now this gets to the point of how Paul could look at the Corinthians in the midst of all
of their trouble, in the midst of all of their temptation, in the midst of all of their false
doctrine and all of their false practice, and he can be happy about them and give thanks
to God for them.
Because Paul knows that left to ourselves, no one would believe in Jesus.
Paul knows that left to ourselves, no one would be saved.
Paul knows that according to our flesh and our strength, there should be no church in
the world, no Christian at all.
And so every little tiny bit of faith is cause in Paul’s mind and also in ours is cause for
great rejoicing.
Do you remember the story of the child that’s looking at the sink full of dirty dishes and
just looking at it and just despairing over all of the work that they had to do in front
of them?
And their mom comes up behind them and says, look how thankful we should be because we
have so much food that makes these dishes dirty.
Now that’s St. Paul.
And he looks at the church, and it’s a mess, but he gives thanks to God that there are
so many Christians to get in this much trouble.
And this is how we should also consider each other.
Do you know that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, apart from God’s grace, do you
know how many people would be in this sanctuary?
None.
Do you know how many people there would be to fill the pulpit?
Not a single one.
You know how many Christians there would be in the world apart from the work of God?
There would be none at all because all are sinners and all have fallen short, and that
each one of you is a testimony of the miracle of God’s grace, and we should see each other
this way.
We should look around at each other and say that each one of us here with an interest
in the Lord’s Word and a delight in His kindness is an indication of the miracle of God in
Christ.
Christ, and we should give thanks to God for one another.
In fact, I think there’s four things that we need to keep in mind whenever we look at
one another and anybody else.
Number one, that that person that we’re looking at is created in the image of God.
Number two, that the person that we’re looking at is a sinner.
Number three, that the person that we are looking at and talking to and dealing with
is redeemed by Jesus, that Jesus is their brother.
and, number four, that they are the object of the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification.
And we can think that about each other when we meet together in church, and you can think
that about the person that makes your coffee when you go to McDonald’s, or the person
that you cross walking the dog, or the person that’s trying to break into your mailbox
and steal your mail, or whoever.
To the person running for office, to the person cutting you off in traffic.
Every single person that we meet is a redeemed sinner,
the object of God’s love.
And so we can give thanks in Christ for them.
And we can see them through these spiritual eyes.
Now I haven’t sorted out all the implications
of viewing the world through spiritual eyes.
But I know this, that when the Holy Spirit
it starts to open our eyes through His Word, then we start to see wonderful and beautiful
things.
The wonder of God’s love, the beauty of Christ’s church, the radiance of God’s Word, and the
glory of His creation that’s waiting for His second coming.
So may God grant it.
may God grant us His Holy Spirit, so that we would see God and ourselves and our neighbors
with the eyes of Jesus. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that
was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in Him in all speech and all
knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking
in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He
will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is
faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son. Amen. And the
peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and
minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
